III.

THE NOONTIDE ECLIPSE.

"I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.”— AMOS, VIII. 9.

THE

HE sudden shutting out of sunlight by an eclipsing moon, is a solemn and impressive scene.

The face

of nature wears, at such times, a strange and peculiar aspect. The animal creation is overcome with instinctive dread, and man, even though science has taught him to unveil this mystery of the skies, is awe-struck and humbled by the sublime phenomenon.

As the earth enters the penumbra, and the rays of the sun are first shorn of their light and heat, there arises a general feeling of expectation mingled with fear. Millions of eyes are turned heavenward, and when at last the moon encroaches on the sun's eastern limb, and slowly but surely obscures his bright disc, nearly every face in the shadowy belt is gazing upon the apparently extinguished orb in wonder, and unwillingly admitted alarm.

And is not the going out of a great life like the noontide eclipse? Is there not in the covering up in the grave of a form, once noble, active, and influential, something like the obscuration of the midday sun? There certainly is, and it requires but a slight effort of